Thanks to things like Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" single cover and the steamy video for Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea's "Booty," Vogue magazine has officially declared this "the era of the big booty." The only problem: while these desirable derrieres are a much-needed departure from the waifish frames we so commonly see in pop culture, they're also nothing new.
Susana Morris, an associate English professor at Auburn University, told HuffPost Live on Monday that the black community has celebrated this female form for years, and she expressed frustration that it's taken so long to be accepted on a broader scale.
"A lot of this is the mainstreaming catch up to what so-called marginalized communities have been doing," she told host Nancy Redd. "I remember as a child having a disconnect, hearing about, 'Oh, you need to reduce your body fat -- you need to not have a big butt,' but in my community, to have a shapely figure was to have an hourglass figure, and that meant also having a large butt."
So when publications like Vogue take up the big-booty cause, Morris said it feels several decades too late.
And while Morris rejoices in the fact that such magazine coverage could possibly encourage a body-positive train of thought for shapely females, she hopes this wave of "big booty" love doesn't end up in the proverbial graveyard with other popular trends of yore.
"It's like when middle-aged people caught up to the term 'bling,' and then it's like, okay, it's over," she said. "Well, now it's like butts are going to be over."
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